Users with mobile devices are demanding ever increasing amounts of data from the wireless cellular systems to which they connect. This explosive growth has fueled the need for increasing amounts of cellular infrastructure, in particular a dramatically increased density of wireless access points (APs). To attempt to meet these increasing demands, there is a trend to substantially increase the number of available low power small cell APs, e.g., small cell Home eNodeBs (HeNBs). The small cells may be, and in some embodiments are, implemented as femto cells which share frequency spectrum with macro cells where an individual macrobase station normally corresponds to a macro cell.
In the macro network a fair amount of redundancy exists allowing for control and/or other entities to take over and replace a failed node. In current small cell deployments there tends to be little or no redundancy.
If small cells are to be viewed as a viable alternative to large cells, it should be appreciated that there is a need for methods and apparatus which would support redundancy and/or maintenance of small cell systems without placing significant burdens on macro network infrastructure elements that may already exist.
Thus, as small cells are deployed in larger numbers there is a need for redundancy and/or the ability to transition a UE (User Equipment device) or other device from one data center to another even though it may continue to receive services though a particular HeNB. It would be desirable if such transitions of UEs could be implemented with relatively little signaling or communication with elements of the macro network when the transition is between one data center serving HeNBs to another data center serving HeNBs and an HeNB serving a UE remains unchanged.
Accordingly, given that an active data center may fail and/or need to be removed from active status to support maintenance, there is a need for methods and apparatus that facilitate moving of UEs being serviced by HeNBs with communications links to one data center to another data center.